Glossop is Derbyshire's textile town, busy with cotton mills and rayon printing works, and also producing paper, ropes, and canned foods; but finding romance in its glorious situation as the northern gateway of the High Peak.
It stands at the beginning of a magnificent 12 mile stretch of road unrivalled in this lovely county, beside the wild grandeur of Kinder Scout, a world of mountain and gorge, moorland and trackless waste and many a waterfall, as well as the beauty of green valleys as the Ladybower Reservoir draws near.
Four miles from Glossop, after climbing nearly 1700 feet above sea-level at the Snake Pass, the road is joined for a spell by the course of the Doctor's Gate, which leaves it again near the inn which is the first sign of life. Gate means road, and since 1627 this track has been known as Doctor Talbot's Gate. Dr John Talbot, Vicar of Glossop during the period 1494-1550, was the illegitimate son of the Earl of Shrewsbury and may have used the old Roman road when visiting his father's castle in Sheffield. The Doctor's Gate is part of the old Roman road from Brough to Melandra Castle, known to the Romans as Ardotalia, where on a slope between the meeting of the Etherow and a brook can be seen the walls of the fortress, excavated in recent years.
In Dinting Vale an impressive railway viaduct stands 120 feet high, with 16 arches each 125 feet wide, striding across road and valley. North of the town, the Etherow is dammed up into five miles of lakes to supply Manchester and its neighbouring towns with water. Close by is Higher Shelf Stones. In bad weather this is quite a frightening place to be, in good weather it is a fascinating are to visit.
Close by will be seen the remains of a Flying Fortress aircraft. The gleaming metal is scattered over a wide area almost as though the accident had only just happened: in fact the crash, in which thirteen American airmen died, occurred on the 3rd November 1948. Four engines and many metal fragments are scattered about an, although it is illegal to remove any pieces. At one time the entire fuselage and tail could be seen. The rocks here are covered in graffiti, some of which date back to the 7th October 1871.
South of the town, on the Old Monk's Road, is the Abbot's Chair, perhaps the base stone of an ancient cross, and a mile from the chair are Robin Hood's Pickling Rods - twin monoliths set in a massive stone.
The sombre 'new town' around the marketplace was mostly laid out after 1830, though the charm is in its older haunts to the north-east, where 17th century gabled houses climb the road by the church and the tall market-cross stands in the square. The church of Old Glossop has little old work left, the nave having been made new in 1915 and the chancel and a lady chapel added in 1923. The tower and spire were built last century by the Duke of Norfolk, whose arms are on the spandrels of its doorway. On a hill to the west of the church is a Roman Catholic chapel, built in 1836, with a lovely view of dipping moorlands. Between the church and the chapel is Glossop Hall, a fine house of 1850, once the Duke of Norfolk's and now a school, in a public park of rare delight, with a wealth of trees, stream, waterfalls and lake.
